World

Chelsea Manning: What she told us through Wikileaks

U.S. Army 3rd Division 3-7 infantry soldiers examine a Saddam Hussein mural as they conduct a neighborhood patrol on the outside perimeter of the Baghdad International Airport in 2003. Chelsea Manning’s information contained Iraq war logs (Getty)

Chelsea Manning, who passed on classified material to WikiLeaks, has had her prison sentence reduced and will now be released in May.

Outgoing President Barack Obama decided to commute the sentence of the former US military intelligence analyst, who had been due for release in 2045, just three days before Donald Trump takes office.

Manning was working in Baghdad when she gave WikiLeaks a trove of damning information about the US government. She exposed more than 700,000 classified Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and diplomatic cables.

Chelsea Manning will be released in May (Photo: Getty)

These are just some pieces of information the world now knows, thanks to Chelsea Manning:

‘Collateral Murder’

The video, from 2007 and titled “collateral murder” showed shots being fired at suspected insurgents in Iraq from a US Apache helicopter. A dozen people were killed, including two Reuters new staff.

Indiscriminate killing

Manning revealed information detailing a 2007 incident in which US marines escaping an attack outside the city of Jalalabad, in Afghanistan, fired their guns indiscriminately. Many were wounded and 19 unarmed civilians were killed.

Torture

Gitmo

Nearly 800 documents, released in April 2011, revealed intelligence assessments and interviews of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The information showed that many detainees had been held even after being cleared for release.

A marina at the US Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay which holds the prison known as “Gitmo” (Getty)

Spying

The US State Department instructed US diplomats to spy on United Nations officials, including secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, in an attempt to gain passwords used in official communications, according to a 2010 information release.

Chilcot

The British Government promised to limit the Chilcot inquiry into the causes of the Iraq war to “protect” US interests, according to a release from November 2010.

The Iraq Inquiry Report was presented by Sir John Chilcot on 6 July 2016 (Getty)

Shell

Staff from Shell infiltrated the government of oil-rich Nigeria. The move meant that the oil giant “had access to everything that was being done in those ministries,” according to the US diplomatic cables.

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